If you’ve been playing Diablo III for a few hours, you’re just about ready to start your way into Act II. Unless, of course, you’ve opted to try and beat the game in 12 and a half hours, but let’s assume you are taking your time and enjoying the game. The first act of Diablo III was designed to ease you into the new battle system, and really get you back into the rhythm of picking apart the fiends of hell with your hero of choice. Now, you’ve made your way through the first part of the story, and you are prepared to take the long trip to the great city of Caldeum, way on the other side of the map. Welcome to Act II of Diablo III.

You know the basics, now learn how to really play the game

You’ve been playing the game for a little while, by which I mean you have figured out that if you mash the left and right button on your mouse and occasionally remember to hit your ability keys on the keyboard, you’ll kill just about everything in front of you. You might have even messed with your abilities a bit and come up with some fun attack combinations that get you through a skirmish quickly. If you’re a Wizard, you’ve even gotten friendly with the potion delivery key, but you still haven’t really gotten into the meat and potatoes of the gameplay. Which is great, because you’re probably only level 15 or so. What kind of game would it be if you had already mastered the gameplay?

Act II brings out mobility and strategy concepts that you don’t really see in Act I. You don’t just have a horde of baddies coming at you, you have a horde of baddies with lasting damage tools. Your enemies in Act II are no strangers to things like poison and fire, and they will use them even in death to make sure you don’t make it forward. If you’re a Wizard or a Demon Hunter, you’ll figure out really quickly that standing still and firing your attacks is not going to get you very far.

Act II uses the balance of open air fighting and dungeon crawl fighting and makes sure you’re not able to just click your way through the game. Some kind of strategy is important, and unless you have decent gear the best strategy is to run away when you get outnumbered by more than five or six.

The sick joke that is crafting

Since Diablo III has done away with things like a Horadric Cube, or scrolls of identification and town portal, you need some other mindless task to occupy your time in town. Welcome to crafting! If you’ve got magical items, you can destroy them and break them down to their crafting essence, so you can make your own weapons and armor. If you pay the blacksmith enormous sums of gold, he’ll teach you everything you need to know.

Unfortunately, just like the equipment vendors in the game, if you find yourself in a position to spend gold on an item, you aren’t likely to keep it for very long. Just about everything you could possibly need can be found on the corpses of your enemies. All you need to do is survive long enough to pull it off of them, and you will usually wind up with a far better set of gear than you will ever be able to buy. This effect is multiplied when you have party members looking at their inventories as well for items that would benefit you.

Not all crafting is bad though. Eventually you’ll discover gem crafting. That’s right, the classic Diablo socket system is alive and kicking in Act II, and you have the ability to take the gems you pick up in your travels and make them even more useful with gem crafting. If you spend the money to learn how, you’ll be making flawless gems in no time, and if you remember the last Diablo at all, placing a flawless anything in your socketed item will usually increase its level of awesome by quite a bit. If you find yourself in need of gems, or if you find yourself with an abundance of gems, don’t forget about the Auction House that exists outside the game.

Pay attention to the story

Blizzard may have made it painfully easy to dismiss those great videos, but if you are interested in the story for Diablo III you should really make sure you search every nook and cranny of Act II. By now, the game is starting to take shape, and there is no shortage of side stories and explanations of how exactly the world found itself in trouble this time, and why you are apparently the only person on the planet that can do something about it. As an added bonus, many of the books you find my searching all over the place will grant you a fair bit of extra experience, not to mention the satisfaction of maximum game completion.

By the time you have completed Act II, Diablo III will feel like a very different game. You will have access to a host of new abilities, and you will find that those abilities can be combined to create very specific strengths and weaknesses. When you combine a more detailed spec with multiple players, you can create a very effective force with which to play through the game. If you haven’t jumped into a public game by now, or if you have yet to play a game with friends, Act II is a great place to give it a try. The variety of battle arenas make for a great co-op experience through the darkened streets of Caldeum.